Beyond the lunatic asylum of the 19th century ITS LEGACY, MY FAMILY, AND THE MADNESS WITHIN
Lisa Edwards shares a difficult research journey into an unexplored corner of her famlly history that speaks of Victorian attitudes to mental health – and how these beliefs affected the generations that followed
ANCESTRAL CRISIS
I’m on a journey of discovery into my family’s darkest history, unexplored before, where a diagnosis of insanity in Liverpool in the 1880s had devastating consequences for each generation that followed, including my own. As I begin to unravel the secrets of Victorian Liverpool, I wonder, is insanity inherited and if so, does the madness lie within?
I have spoken and written about the above many times throughout 2023 and each time I do, I still feel angry and disappointed with the Victorians’ attitude towards poor mental health, because from what I have discovered it feels like it was an experiment in the newly developing world of the alienist, who were the doctors looking after the mentally ill and who were part of an emerging psychiatric profession.
Cultural history suggests that as a society changes, as it did rapidly in the 19th century, then so do the rules that govern society and with this the types of behaviours expected of its citizens. The alleged growing number of pauper lunatics during the 19th and early 20th centuries was viewed by government as one of the major problems of the time and was apparently having an effect on English society.
A MOVE AWAY FROM FAMILY-BASED CARE
In previous centuries there had been people affected by ‘unusual behaviours’ as they were called, who were looked after by family members. However, it would appear to change as ‘unusual behaviours’ started to be diagnosed as ‘insanity’ by the new profession of alienists, and people were then removed from families and put into asylums. Interestingly the growth of lunatics was in paupers and not private patients, which would seem to suggest to me that there was a possible connection between poverty and poor mental health.
I have three ancestors who were treated by the emerging psychiatric profession; all in Lancashire and all were pauper lunatics. I have been able to access their medical files which give an insight into lives that have been missed
